Subject: fw : special prayer request - - - - - original message - - - - - from : celestedeo @ aol . com sent : tuesday , april 11 , 2000 1 : 21 pm subject : special prayer request hi , i am coming to you with a very special prayer request . we have some good friends here in nashville , mark and melanie burress and their one year old baby gracie , who have recently received some devastating news . mark was diagnosed in december with leukemia . his is normally a very slow spreading form of the disease but unfortunately his is spreading extremely fast . he also has a rare dna type and only about 12 people on the bone marrow donor list ( out of 4 . 5 million ) were possible matches and all have since been elimnated . we held a bone marrow drive in his behalf at church this past weekend and over 1200 people came to donate . this amazed the people running the drive because they said they normally get a few hundred at the most . if a donor is not found by june his chances are very , very slim to live to july . he has chosen to have his bone marrow transplant in houston at the anderson hospital so i am asking if there is anyone in houston who knows of a strong , supportive congregation near the hospital that they may attend ( when possible ) while they are there , that would be greatly appreciated . if a donor is located , they say the transplant procedure is very difficult and he won ' t be able to have any contact with his baby for several months due to his immune system being weakened . as you can imagine , this would put his wife in a severe state of limbo , having to be primary caregiver to someone who is incapacitated and a baby without the two being able to be together . it is difficult to watch someone with so much to give and so much to live for to be facing such a hard fight . please keep his family in your prayers and i know if there is a miracle with marks ' name on it , god will provide it . if you could please pass this on to the chi sigs / regina list , every little prayer they get will be appreciated . thank you ! celeste ( sasser ) ortega